Shannon enters race for Oklahoma seat in US Senate

In this Sept. 4, 2013 file photo, Speaker of the Oklahoma House, Rep. T.W Shannon, R-Lawton, smiles at his desk on the floor of the House during the second day of a special session of the legislature in Oklahoma City. At least two key members of the Oklahoma House are lining up votes to be the chamber's next leader, anticipating that Shannon will launch a bid for the U.S. Senate and give up the House's top post days before the 2014 session opens.(AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma House Speaker T.W. Shannon formally announced his candidacy Wednesday for the GOP race for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat, moments after another Republican hopeful said he won’t run.

Shannon, R-Lawton, is seeking the Senate seat held by U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, who is stepping down two years early at the end of this congressional term.

“Over the last six years, I have seen so many of our rights and freedoms under assault, it makes me seriously concerned about what kind of country my children will inherit,” Shannon told a crowd at the Tulsa Historical Society.

A member of the Chickasaw Nation, Shannon, 35, was the first African-American and the youngest speaker of the Oklahoma House when he was elected last year.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus last year called Shannon a “rising star” within the GOP, and Shannon has participated in several RNC-sponsored events across the country.

“We can either work to save this country together or we can continue going down the same path with more debt and economic ruin,” Shannon said.

Shannon will join two-term U.S. Rep. James Lankford and two others in the race for the GOP nomination. No Democrats have formally announced; a Democrat hasn’t been elected to an open U.S. Senate seat in Oklahoma since David Boren in 1978 and Republicans are heavily favored to maintain this one.

In a 10-minute speech, Shannon outlined what he thinks has been going wrong in Washington: businesses that must overcome a “maze of federal rules and regulations,” the Affordable Care Act, which he said forces people to buy health insurance they “may not want,” and wasteful spending.

Shannon said Oklahomans needed to elect “someone who will go to Washington like Dr. Tom Coburn first did and say ‘no’ to the spending and the debt that is bankrupting this country.”

AP Capitol Correspondent Sean Murphy contributed to this report from Oklahoma City